Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida a week ago, and the damage has been far-reaching and unprecedented. Entire sections of western North Carolina are underwater. Communities are destroyed, and tens of thousands of residents don’t have access to running water. More than 1 million homes and businesses in the Carolinas and Georgia are currently without power.
Although this time Florida didn’t bear the brunt of the storm, it was the third hurricane in just over a year to hit the North Florida area. When I had the chance to speak this week with Democratic state Sen. Shevrin Jones, my first question was how he was holding up in Helene’s aftermath
“I’m doing well down here in South Florida,” he told me. “But my friends up in North Florida and Southwest Florida in the St. Pete, Tampa, Hillsborough County area, they're still in recovery mode right now, and some of them are even displaced because they have to find other places to live. One of my good friends, Reggie, and his wife and their family, they lost everything. So now, they have to find somewhere where they can live for the next two to three months, until they can get back on their feet. It’s devastating.”
At least 180 people have been confirmed dead from the hurricane, but hundreds more are missing so that number is only expected to rise. “Devastating” remains the most appropriate descriptor.
“This is one of those times that we should throw political talking points and party affiliation out of the window because the storm doesn't have a D or R next to their name,” Jones said. “I don’t think the people who have been displaced truly care at all about politics at this time. So, I’m happy to see the camaraderie and the collegiality that is happening right now with elected officials and people who are on the ground to help people get back on their feet.”
Of course, it helps that President Joe Biden is an actual leader and not a drooling psychopath like his predecessor and wannabe successor. Donald Trump is like the Republican presidential candidate in The American President, who has no interest in solving anyone’s particular problem: He’s only concerned with “making you afraid of it and telling you who’s the blame for it.”
Trump has falsely accused the Biden-Harris administration of non-responsiveness as Americans suffered. He grotesquely claimed that Biden wasn’t helping Republican-leaning areas, when he was the one who expected Democratic governors to come to him on their knees after a natural disaster. He said Vice President Kamala Harris was “out campaigning, looking for money,” when she was literally giving an update on the devastation from FEMA headquarters. He accused Biden of avoiding Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s phone calls, when Kemp had publicly thanked Biden for his swift response. Harris visited Augusta, Georgia, on Wednesday and announced that the federal government had approved Kemp’s request for 100 percent reimbursement of local costs. (Watch below.)
This is what Trump does. He can only divide. However, when it comes to climate change, I almost wish he were making more people afraid of the actual problem. Just last Sunday, as Helene left a trail of destruction, Trump declared at his Pennsylvania hate rally that “the environmental stuff” was a “scam,” unlike his racist conspiracy theories about Haitian immigrants eating people’s pets.
Unfortunately, Trump isn’t the only climate denier in the GOP. Not long after Florida experienced its hottest year on record since 1895, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation that erased the very words “climate change” from Florida statutes. The law reduced regulations on gas pipelines in the state and protected the inalienable rights of gas stoves.
“We’re restoring sanity in our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of the radical green zealots,” DeSantis posted on Elon Musk’s Disinformation Palace.
Sen. Jones, however, envisions a Florida that takes the climate crisis seriously.
“What kind of state could we be if we put together a climate task force to talk about best solutions?” he said. “Hurricane season comes by every year and these hurricanes are getting worse and worse every year. We should be talking about how we combat this and ensure that people, when they’re going to create claims for insurance costs, that they’re doing everything that they can so the insurance can turn over these claims in timely manners. But those are things that’s not happening.”
Jones believe we’re reaching a point when even Floridians who lean Republican believe we should start seriously addressing the climate crisis. My concern is that Florida will just have a climate change ballot referendum that receives 70 percent support while Matt Gaetz wins the 2026 gubernatorial election on the same ballot. Floridians need to elect politicians who won’t play silly MAGA games. For instance, Gaetz and his fellow Florida Republicans voted against a continuing resolution that would’ve funded the Federal Emergency Management Agency through the end of the year. MAGA Republicans also removed much-needed supplemental disaster funding from the stopgap bill even as Helene barreled into Florida.
Gaetz’s response was to suggest that Ukraine was somehow receiving all our disaster recovery funding. Distrust anyone whose primary objective during a crisis is casting blame.
“You have Republicans who’d much rather make a political statement than create a solution to a chaotic problem that they caused,” Jones said. “It’s disheartening because for the people who’ve been displaced, that’s not the top of their agenda right now. The top of their agenda is how do I get back on my feet? And what Matt Gaetz and Donald Trump and all these other leaders are doing is just to make a political point. Why are you in office?”
The great Florida Democratic comeback?
Shevrin Jones is the first openly gay person elected to the Florida Senate, and while he’s been on the front lines of the Florida GOP’s anti-queer attacks, including HB 1557 — the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill, Jones remains optimistic that Democrats can once again win statewide. This isn’t just wishful thinking. Jones points to Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan’s surprise victory last year and how Tom Keen flipped a Republican House seat in a January special election.
“I just told someone yesterday to hell with the polls, amplify the people,” he said. “I think we're going to be extremely surprised at the people who are going to come out and vote on November 5. I believe that Florida is an absolutely critical state. This is a critical election and it’s one that we’re determined to win. I think we’re going to win.”
As chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, Jones has seen more organization from Florida Democrats after a disappointing 2022: “They’re doing door knocking. They’re doing postcard writing. They’re doing phone banking. They’re doing canvassing. They’re doing parties at their house. All of this is happening because people saw what happens when we sleep at the wheel. The damn car goes off the cliff.”
Jones believes that Florida Democrats are getting back on track. Although the Harris campaign isn’t specifically focused on Florida, the state party is building an infrastructure that will let them reach voters “from Pensacola to Key West.” So far, 45,000 new volunteers in the state have signed up to mobilize and help the campaign.
“We got [Democratic Party] Chair Nikki Fried, who has been leading the charge here in Florida to bring this momentum back,” he said. “I think it is going well, but we can’t stop this momentum in 2024. This has to transcend into 2025, into 2026, and we got to keep doing it until we win. It took the Republicans over 20 years to get back into the place where they are now. And we're not going to change overnight. [Former Attorney General] Eric Holder said something yesterday, and I’m going to steal it from him. He said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it always bends towards justice. But we have to be the one to pull the string for it to bend.”
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